For the last two years, I've found myself begrudgingly admitting that yes, my vision is increasingly shot.
After a lifetime of feeling a very-slightly-silly pride in something that required no effort whatsoever on my part, it was hard admitting to myself that the increasingly blurred pages of books, hymnals, and sermon-texts had nothing to do with inadequate lighting or fatigue. Like my father's eyes in his late 50s, mine are still fine for driving, but are now pretty much completely useless for reading.
So I've taken to wearing reading glasses, because I need 'em. At first, they were just whatever was cheapest at the local grocery store, three pairs of 1.25x magnification for fifteen bucks, that sort of thing.
But those proved noodly for public speaking. They were too large, meaning they'd muck with my distance vision when I alternated from glancing down at the text and engaging my congregation. If I skootched them down my nose, they'd still get in the way.
What I need, I thought, is some a them old-timey glasses, with teeny tiny little round lenses set into a wire frame. Something you'd expect to see Santa wearing, or find perched on the nose of Bartleby the Scrivener. One could comfortably peer over the rims of such tiny lenses with no difficulty, while the slightest glance downwards would engage their magnification.
These were the sort of little round glasses I'd wear in tinted form as a teen, as I tried on affectation after affectation in my adolescent quest for identity. Like the bleached and hand-distressed jeans I wore, or a period when I sported an ill-advised mullet, they were endearingly semi-competent. Now, though, the glasses serve an actual purpose, and are entirely age appropriate.
Being a compulsive ditherer when it comes to making any sort of purchase, this took me a while. I found glasses that fit the bill, but they were fifty bucks. So I did some bargain shopping for a couple of months, finally snagging three pair from eBay for eighteen bucks. A three dollar premium for function seemed well worth it, and I like how they look. They had precisely the Edwardian/Steampunk aesthetic I'd hoped they'd have, although I've yet to add a cravat and a top hat to my wardrobe.
The net effect is that I look more...vintage. As my endearingly blunt niece put it at a recent family gathering: "Those glasses! I like the look. You do realize they...age...you?" I do indeed.
It's actually a preference. A goal. Why in the Blessed Lord's name would I want to look younger? I'm not young, not by a long shot. Young Elvis has left the building, so to speak, and...as a man...I find few things sillier than men who preen and primp and try to pretend they're something they're most obviously not. Colored hair and makeup are the mark of desperate egotism in the male of the species.
If you're balding, be balding. If you're going grey, go grey. Dress for comfort and for the weather, not for the impact it has on others. Why should that matter? Fitness is another thing altogether, because health isn't just a social affectation. I'm not chasing the chiseled impossible Hollywood musculature that's as false as the blighted self-images inflicted on our mothers, sisters, and daughters. I'm content with functional fitness, so's I can garden and chop wood and take nice long walks in the woods. I'm content with being "spry." Or "doing well for a gentleman of a certain age."
That, and being perceived as older has some benefits. Like, say, the senior discount at the local grocery store, which I find gets offered to me now whenever I shop on Senior Thursdays. I'm still technically a few years below the threshold, but when asked if I "would like the Senior discount," why yes, I would like that very much. The glasses do seem to help with that.
Being young was a pleasure while it lasted. I remember it fondly. But I do not wish, now, to be young. Or to put on the trappings of youth. I like being older.
Age, too, has its pleasures. A sense of oneself, and a reservoir of wisdom hard earned over decades of life? These are blessings.
And being able to wear teeny tiny vintage glasses, which finally look like they belong on my face.
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